The pandemic did not take as heavy a toll on the mental health of immigrants in Atlantic Canada as it did on other Canadians, according to a Statistics Canada survey.
Immigrants in Atlantic Canada were more likely to tell researchers that their mental health had gotten better rather than worse since the start of the pandemic. This was not the case for non-immigrant Atlantic Canadians or immigrants in other parts of the country.
The Statistics Canada survey, taken in 2022 with results published this spring, found 30 per cent of immigrants in Atlantic Canada reported better mental health compared to pre-pandemic times, and only 22.7 per cent reported feeling worse.
In that same study, more than 30 per cent of other Atlantic Canadians reported their mental health was worse after that experience, not better, while only a few more than 10 per cent said it had improved. Nationally, immigrants reported better mental health than non-immigrants, but the difference was not as pronounced as it was in Atlantic Canada.
Raquel Hoersting, a psychology professor at the University of Prince Edward Island with a specialty in mental health and culture, described immigrants as a unique population.
“Here’s someone who has a lot of, often, grit, a lot of strength, a lot of resilience, to be able to move, to be able to establish a whole new life in a new country,” said Hoersting.
Non-immigrants may have found their networks more disrupted than immigrants, says UPEI psychology Prof. Raquel Hoersting. (Submitted by Raquel Hoersting)
Paul Musa, president of the Nigerian Canadian Association of Prince Edward Island, said anyone willing to seek out that level of change in their lives is better positioned to face hardship.
“They must have developed themselves mentally, socially, to be able to cope with whatever challenge they encounter on their journey to greener pasture,” said Musa.
He described the mentality this way: “This journey, I’m ready to go through whatever I face, whatever challenge that comes my way.”
‘We were right on it’
Immigrants also have a heightened sense of community, said Hoersting.
It is a sense that is bolstered by organizations like Musa’s, and in Atlantic Canada some of those organizations rallied to support their members even before the pandemic was declared in March of 2020.
Atousa Costandi, board member and secretary for the Iranian Cultural Society of Nova Scotia, said her group saw how COVID-19 was hitting their home country and began making preparations before Canada really started to feel the effects.
The Iranian Cultural Society of Nova Scotia gathered materials essential for pandemic survival and distributed them to community members in need, says the group’s secretary, Atousa Costandi. (Submitted by Atousa Costandi)
The society connected with doctors who were immigrants from Iran, who began translating public health information into Farsi. When quarantine requirements were put in place, it found rooms for new arrivals from Iran.
“We were right on it. We were trying to get sanitizer and masks to people, especially people who were new in town,” said Costandi.
There were vulnerable people or seniors who couldn’t leave home, so we helped them with groceries…We tried to help, to help our community.— Atousa Costandi
“We were able to get them and we spread it amongst [those] who needed it. And of course there were vulnerable people or seniors who couldn’t leave home, so we helped them with groceries with our Helping Hands group. We tried to help, to help our community.”
The association’s annual cultural celebration in the spring of 2020 was cancelled, but it arranged online events featuring local artists and artists from Iran. It set up online programs for children so that they could play, read, and otherwise interact with each other.
“That kept our community together during the COVID,” said Costandi. “We’re still hearing about that. They’re still talking about, ‘You guys were great and the programs were great.'”
Calling home
While the resilience of immigrants and strong community ties may explain why immigrants coped with the pandemic better than other Canadians, it doesn’t explain why newcomers to the Atlantic had a better experience than immigrants in other parts of Canada — or a better time than non-newcomer Prince Edward Islanders, who also have a strong sense of community.
“A lot of people who live here, and who have lived here for many generations, have very close, intricate connections with each other, and social networks,” said Hoersting.
The Iranian Cultural Society of Nova Scotia kept the community together by organizing events such as this hike in 2020. (Submitted by Iranian Cultural Society of Nova Scotia)
But those close connections are different for Islanders born and raised in the province, as opposed to those who immigrated, she said. Native Islanders are accustomed to close, in-person contact with their social groups.
“The pandemic made it so you had to cut some of those networks. You couldn’t visit with people,” said Hoersting.
“That was a bigger impact for them than for immigrants, who already had created a much smaller social network by moving here.”
Immigrants, with were in the habit of keeping connections strong through calls back to their home countries, were also already primed for the remote communication required to keep in touch during the height of the pandemic.
Immigrant paradox
As for why immigrants on the East Coast did better than those in the rest of the country, Hoersting lays the credit on what is known as the immigrant paradox.
While you might expect someone completely uprooted and placed in a new environment to struggle, the opposite is true.
Immigrants are going to do their best to make it work, says Nathaly Munoz of the Latinos Association of P.E.I. (Submitted by Nathaly Munoz)
“Immigrants who are more recent arrivals, they outperform established immigrants or non-immigrants in a lot of different indices, like job or health or crime or mental health,” said Hoersting.
This is likely because most immigrants have moved by choice. These are not random people who were uprooted by circumstances. They are people who uprooted themselves.
“These people are coming here to P.E.I. to make it work. They’re coming for, hopefully, a better life. They’re sacrificing a lot. They’re doing it to improve their life. So when they come here, you bet that they’re doing their best to make it work,” said Nathaly Munoz, president of the Latinos Association of P.E.I.
“There’s not necessarily a second option, so they have to be optimistic. They’ve given everything up.”
This is significant for Atlantic Canada because the region has a higher proportion of recent immigrants than other parts of the country.
According to the 2021 census, Canada is home to more than 8 million immigrants, and 29 per cent of them had arrived since 2011. In Atlantic Canada, 44 per cent of immigrants had arrived in the decade before the census recorded their presence.
The theory that new immigrants are more resilient than their more established counterparts also seems to play out in the three Prairie provinces, though to not as large a degree as it did in Atlantic Canada.
On the Prairies, 42 per cent of immigrants recorded in the census had landed in Canada between 2011 and 2021. Better mental health was reported by 24 per cent of immigrants on the Prairies, and only 25 per cent reported it was worse.
EDMONTON – Ontario country artist Jade Eagleson has won album of the year at the 2024 Canadian Country Music Association Awards in Edmonton.
The singer from Bailieboro, Ont., was up for six awards alongside Alberta’s MacKenzie Porter.
Eagleson took home album of the year for “Do It Anyway” and says he’s thankful to his wife and management team for helping him reach the level he’s at.
The James Barker Band from Woodville, Ont., also won fans’ choice and group of the year at the award show, held in Edmonton.
During their acceptance speech, frontman Barker hinted at new music and a possible tour in 2025.
Another Ontario crooner, Josh Ross, has taken home a trio of awards, receiving entertainer of the year, male artist of the year and single of the year.
He says he and his band play roughly 150 shows every year and are never home, but says taking home entertainer of the year makes the hard work worth it.
Porter took home female artist of the year, ending the five-year streak of Tenille Townes being awarded the coveted hardware.
Porter had been nominated seven times previously for the award in the past decade but hadn’t won until tonight.
The artist from Medicine Hat, Alta., says it takes a lot of hard work and hustle to succeed as a female in the country music industry and gave a shout out to her fellow singers and her newborn daughter.
Joining the two artists in the winners’ circle was Ontario singer-songwriter Owen Riegling, who won for breakthrough artist of the year.
The show began with American artist and co-host Thomas Rhett being dubbed an honorary Canadian by Edmonton Oilers players Corey Perry and Leon Draisaitl.
Rhett donned an Oilers jersey that was gifted to him by the pair.
The return of k.d. lang and the Reclines was expected to be a highlight of the show.
The appearance will mark the first time the Alberta songstress has teamed up with the band in 35 years and is tied to lang’s induction into the Canadian Country Music Hall of Fame.
The awards show is back in Alberta’s capital for the first time since 2014. It was held in Hamilton last year and in Calgary in 2022.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 14, 2024.
VANDERHOOF, B.C. – British Columbia Conservatives are promising changes they say will bring more stability to the province’s struggling forest industry.
Leader John Rustad announced his plan for the sector a week before the official launch of the provincial election campaign, saying a Conservative government would do away with stumpage fees paid when timber is harvested and instead put a tax on the final products that are produced.
Rustad said Saturday that under a provincial Conservative government, a small fee may be charged upfront, but the bulk would come at the end of the process, depending on what type of product is created.
He also promised to review how wildfires are managed, as well as streamline the permit process and review what he calls the province’s “uncompetitive cost structure.”
“British Columbia is by far the highest cost producers of any jurisdiction in North America. We need to be able to drive down those costs, so that our forest sector can actually be able to do the reinvestment, to be able to create the jobs and make sure that they’re still there to be able to support our communities,” he said.
The governing New Democrats meanwhile, say eliminating stumpage fees would inflame the softwood lumber dispute with the United States and hurt forestry workers.
In a statement issued by the NDP, Andrew Mercier, the party’s candidate in Langley-Willowbrook, said Rustad failed to support the industry when he was in government under the former BC Liberals.
“Not only will Rustad’s old thinking and recycled ideas fail to deliver, his proposal to eliminate stumpage would inflame the softwood lumber dispute — punishing forestry workers and communities,” Mercier said, accusing Rustad of ignoring the complexity of the challenges facing the industry.
The softwood lumber dispute between the U.S. and Canada stretches back decades. In August, the U.S. Department of Commerce nearly doubled duties on softwood lumber.
International Trade Minister Mary Ng has said Canada has taken steps to launch two legal challenges under the Canada-United States-Mexico Agreement.
Rustad said a provincial Conservative government would push hard to get a deal with the United States over the ongoing dispute “whether it’s with the rest of Canada or by itself.”
He said his party’s proposed changes are in the name of bringing “stability” and “hope” to the industry that has seen multiple closures of mills in rural communities over the last several years.
Most recently, Canfor Corp. decided to shutter two northern British Columbia sawmills earlier this month, leaving hundreds of workers unemployed by the end of the year.
According to the United Steelworkers union, Canfor has closed 10 mills in the province since November 2011, including nine in northern B.C.
Jeff Bromley, chair of the United Steelworkers wood council, said Saturday the idea of changes in favour of taxing the final product has been floated in the past.
He said the finer details of the Conservative plan will be important, but that the system needs to be improved and “new ideas are certainly something I’d be willing to entertain.”
“Something needs to happen, or the industry is just going to bleed and wither away and be a shadow of its former self,” Bromley said.
“Politics aside, if (Rustad) can come up with a policy that enables my members to work, then I would be supportive of that. But then I’m supportive of any government that would come up with policies and fibre for our mills to run. Period.”
When Canfor announced its latest closures, Forests Minister Bruce Ralston said the sector was a “foundational part” of the province and the current NDP government would work to support both local jobs and wood manufacturing operations.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 14, 2024
SANTA CLARA, Calif. (AP) — The San Francisco 49ers placed All-Pro running back Christian McCaffrey on injured reserve because of his lingering calf and Achilles tendon injuries.
The move made Saturday means McCaffrey will miss at least four more games after already sitting out the season opener. He is eligible to return for a Thursday night game in Seattle on Oct. 10.
McCaffrey got hurt early in training camp and missed four weeks of practice before returning to the field on a limited basis last week. He was a late scratch for the opener on Monday night against the Jets and now is sidelined again after experiencing pain following practice on Thursday.
McCaffrey led the NFL last season with 2,023 yards from scrimmage and was tied for the league lead with 21 touchdowns, winning AP Offensive Player of the Year.
The Niners made up for McCaffrey’s absence thanks to a strong performance from backup Jordan Mason, who had 28 carries for 147 yards and a touchdown in San Francisco’s 32-19 victory over the New York Jets. Mason is set to start again Sunday at Minnesota.
After missing 23 games because of injuries in his final two full seasons with Carolina, McCaffrey had been healthy the past two seasons.
He missed only one game combined in 2022-23 — a meaningless Week 18 game last season for San Francisco when he had a sore calf. His 798 combined touches from scrimmage in the regular season and playoffs were the third most for any player in a two-year span in the past 10 years.
Now San Francisco will likely rely heavily on Mason, a former undrafted free agent out of Georgia Tech who had 83 carries his first two seasons. He had at least 10 touches just twice before the season opener, when his 28 carries were the most by a 49ers player in a regular-season game since Frank Gore had 31 against Seattle on Oct. 30, 2011.
The Niners also have fourth-round rookie Isaac Guerendo and Patrick Taylor Jr. on the active roster. Guerendo played three offensive snaps with no touches in the opener. Taylor had 65 carries for Green Bay from 2021-23.
San Francisco also elevated safety Tracy Walker III from the practice squad for Sunday’s game against Minnesota.
